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GMO Foods

Facebook today, on the rebuttal proposition that we do not have a right to know what’s in our food and how it’s produced.

Correct, no scientifically vetted evidence has been produced that GMO foods are harmful, or will prove to be over a long period of time, but as an argument against GMO labeling this is a red herring.

Some of the arguments below [other comment posts] could have come straight from ConAgra or Monsanto. The comment below that “every natural food we eat is genetically engineered through millennia of selective breeding” fails to acknowledge how many results of natural cross-breeding, cross-pollination and radiation-induced genetic modification don’t make the evolutionary cut. Most of nature’s experiments went the way of the Ford Pinto than survived.

Consumers have a right to expect to be informed where their food comes from, how it is grown and fertilized, and if it is GMO should that be a concern to them. The industry rebuttal is that it is none of our business, that “we know what’s best for you,” and “we’ll decide what you need to know because printing a label is SO expensive and competitively disadvantageous.”

I don’t particularly spend time reading labels at the market because the huge issue for me – at this time – is the industry’s astoundingly resolute stance that where our food comes from and under what conditions it is produced is “proprietary.” I support food labeling laws but IMHO the only thing these folks listen to is profits. Buy the brands and foods that you trust and boycott the rest, as individuals, if not in some more organized fashion.